Editorial: Social media doesn't deprive this hero

Bus driver Darnell Barton poses in front of a bus in Buffalo, N.Y. Barton’s decisive action stopped a woman from leaping from a roadway bridge to her death on to the highway below. Caught between the rules of his job and his training as a first responder, Barton stopped his bus, grabbed the woman and brought her back over the rail to safety.

In the daily rat race, most people are too busy to notice who or what they’re passing by. They just want to get where they’re going.

To further compound their insular attitudes, many Americans have deprived their senses of any ambient input by wearing earphones and restricting their gazes to their iPhones and laptop computers.

Heaven forbid they detach themselves from the electronic “social media” to socialize with people in the real world that immediately surrounds them or just take a minute to experience their environment.

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So when the driver of a Metro bus in Buffalo, N.Y., stopped his bus on the afternoon of Oct. 18 to help a woman in apparent distress, he was indeed the exception.

She was standing on the outer ledge of a guardrail, looking down at the traffic humming along below on the Scajaquada Expressway. Bus video cameras reveal that at least two people passed her by on bike and foot, obviously oblivious to the potentially deadly posture she had assumed.

Thirty-seven-year-old Darnell Barton, however, immediately realized the young lady was in trouble.

Despite being in transit with a busload of McKinley High School students, Barton stopped the vehicle, opened the door and asked her if she needed help. The woman, who was reportedly in her 20s, looked at him briefly before returning her eyes to the bustling traffic below.

“That’s when I went and put my arms around her. I felt like if she looked down at that traffic one more time it might be it,” said Barton.

He enveloped her in a bear hug and asked her if she wanted to climb back over the guardrail. She said, “Yes.” He then sat with her and chatted for awhile.

Before he engaged the young woman, he had called his dispatcher and asked that the authorities be sent to help her. Apparently they eventually took over her safekeeping.

There are many explanations that could be offered as to why Barton interrupted his busy life to help a stranger in need.

He had training in such matters as a former volunteer firefighter and a member of the Buffalo Special Police. He is a church-going man who knows the meaning of “help thy neighbor.” He is also the father of two children who he probably hopes would be saved by the kindness of a stranger if they were at their wit’s end and all seemed hopeless.

We suspect that Darnell Barton saved the life of the lady on the ledge because he is a good person, plain and simple.

To make the story even more compelling, when he finally returned to the bus, he did not face the wrath of a crowd inconvenienced by his good will. Instead, the 20 high school students applauded their bus driver’s good deed.

Clearly, they were able to disengage from the social media long enough to witness what makes a real hero.